Trying Starcraft again, some thoughts (Terran Campaign)

When the first Starcraft came out in 1998 I picked it up, playing it for a little bit and didn't think much of it. I played some multiplayer at a local LAN center and again wasn't that impressed. When it came to my RTS fix back then it was still Warcraft 2 and Red Alert. There was something about Starcraft, well something about it to me that was a bit off. When I saw the original concept shots for the game and it looked similar to Warcraft 2 but in space I was excited for it. Then out of nowhere here we have this isometric view, different graphics and all that jazz. I think I took it to be Blizzard trying to do Command and Conquer and I wasn't having that. If I wanted to play C&C I'd play C&C what I really wanted was more Warcraft from Blizzard.

So with all the love Starcraft 2 is getting I felt left out on the hype so I'm giving the original another shot. Right now I'm at the last mission for the Terran campaign. The story is okay but nothing no one hasn't seen before and I'm judging that by 1998 standards too not just today. The controls and stuff work fine, I mean it's a working RTS. Path finding can be crap at times and I've had units get stuck behind buildings they were building only to be lost forever. While a game like C&C is all about having more numbers I think this is a more rock scissors paper type game. Certain units are best against others and even if you have more numbers if the other side has the counter to what you're using you're done. I'm not a fan of this in RTS I haven't ever and I think it has something to do with why I didn't care for Starcraft when it first came out.

These are just some initial thoughts, I'll post something more substantial when I'm done with the game but I'll do updates as I finish with each race.

Let's talk about World of Warcraft

I've spent a lot of time playing World of Warcraft in the past. I started with it about a month after the game first came out and played for what I call the standard MMO three months. For me in the past with any MMO I usually play it obsessively for about 3 months before I burn out and move on to something else. I've gone back to it on occasion but I always do the three months and I'm done. Every time I've come back to the game I start over usually on the opposite faction from what I played before. I just stopped playing from my most recent return and some of the things in how Blizzard handle the game just don't make me happy. The main reason I quit was my account was hacked and I lost all my good gear. The hackers kept all my crap gear to farm stuff with and then sold the good stuff. I was already not that into playing anymore but this was the breaking point for me. Blizzard was great about getting my account back to me and they were going to return all my gold and items but it was going to take some time to get it all back and I just didn't feel like using my crap gear while I waited for that to happen. I have no idea how the hackers were able to get my account info because my anti virus came up with nothing and all my malware scans came back negative. I guess it's my fault for not having an authenticator but I shouldn't need that. A friend and I came up with a great solution to this without needing an outside device to keep your account safe. If you usually log in from say Florida and then all of a sudden the servers see you logging in from, hmm I don't know uh, China your account should be locked down until you contact Blizzard. They should send an email to you to say hey is this alright and you would need to call them and sort it all out on the phone. Hell they should do this if you move and log in from another IP address with out changing the info with them. This may sound like a major inconvenience and I don't even know if it's possible but it would make a fantastic last line of defense against the WOW hacking crap that goes on. But in the end I wasn't really angry I was hacked it was just such a pain in the ass to get it all fixed. Blizzards phone support was great once I was able to get them on the phone which took about an hour but once I got through it only took a few minutes to get it all back. But then they were able to hack my email and that was a pain to get back. Google were jerks about giving me my email back but I eventually was able to. That was the big stickler to me was the hassle of getting my email back from Google but I think if Blizzard had a better anti hacking thingy I wouldn't of had these problems. Don't get me wrong WOW is still a well done MMO but I'm just done with it right now.

Starcraft 2 comes out tomorrow... and I don't really care.

I've always been a big fan of Blizzard, I love a lot of their games. Yeah I like Warcraft 1/2/3, Diablo 1 and 2, I've put a lot of time into World of Warcraft. I even love the older games they did, like The Lost Vikings and Blackthorne. But one game from them I've never been able to get down with is Starcraft. I played it a little back when it first came out and I didn't really care for it. The sudden change from Warcraft 2 to what they did with Starcraft just didn't sit well with me. I remember seeing the first screen shots of SC and it looked very similar to WC2 and I was excited to play it, because to this day Warcraft 2 is my all time favorite Real Time Strategy game and when I saw the changes to SC I didn't know what to think. I ended up only trying the game and only playing a few levels and just deciding it wasn't for me. Really around this time I just lost touch with the RTS genre and I didn't like how they were becoming these more complex versions of what they started as and yeah I know it's good for a genre to grow but this was one I didn't really like to see evolve the way it did. And to me SC was the beginning of this, with the other titles associated with RTS following along. Well recently I decided to pick up Starcraft and try it again, well I still don't really care for it but I see why it's loved by so many people. It is a good RTS but again just not what I like to see. With Starcraft 2 coming out tomorrow I'm probably the only PC gamer that just doesn't care about it. It feels weird to be sitting on the sidelines for this one as I'm usually all about the hot new release but just not this time. If they put out a demo I'll try it but I just can't see myself enjoying it. I know Blizzard can't be in any hurry to put out a new Warcraft RTS with the amazing success WOW has had but I would love to see a Warcraft 4 similar in play to WC3 but with a higher unit cap. That was my biggest complaint with WC3 was the ridiculously low unit cap on each map. I like to build up massive armies and roll out against my enemy in a relentless slaughter.